BEIJING  It's past midnight and hundreds of men pack Destination. They talk in smoky corridors, move to the beat on a crowded dance floor and play shirtless around a dance pole.

Destination is a lot like any number of gay bars in the United States, but outside of the club, it's a different world for gays in China.

Openness about homosexuality is seen by some as too much of a refutation of the Communist Party line in a country where men are pressured by the government and tradition to marry and father a child, gays say.

Gay festivals are shut down and websites closed, and laws preventing discrimination do not exist.

"If something's different and you publicly promote it, (the authorities) worry it could get out of control and threaten their harmonious society," says Bin Xu, director of Common Language, a lesbian, gay and transgender support group based in Beijing.

In January, authorities canceled the Mr. Gay China pageant an hour before it was to start. Police in Songzhuang, an artist's colony in the suburbs of Beijing, sought last year to shut down a gay arts exhibition, which Xu's group helped organize, because it was deemed "not proper," Xu says.

She negotiated with authorities and was allowed to hold the event after taking down four paintings.

Even in Hong Kong — where the Mr. Gay Hong Kong pageant took place with no government interference — men such as Tik Wai Yeung, 25, say they can't freely express themselves because of cultural pressures to hide their homosexuality.

"It'll be 30 more years before it's normal to walk on the streets holding hands," Yeung says.

Often resort to leading double lives

For the gay community, China today is "like the USA in the 1960s and 1970s," says Wei Xiaogang of Beijing, who runs the Queercomrades.com site.

China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 — six years before the United States repealed sodomy laws in all states. But, unlike in the USA, no laws bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The lack of legal protection, plus the great weight of family and social pressures, keeps most Chinese gays solidly in the closet, Wei says.

Hot-button issues in the United States such as gays serving in the military are barely discussed in China as gay rights are rarely mentioned in the national media. The occasional reports on homosexuality are usually coupled with HIV/AIDS issues, Wei says.

"This does not help understanding of homosexuality, and only increases the feeling of fear among Chinese gays. They become less willing to stand up, or protect themselves more actively," he says.

Chinese culture plays heavily into the treatment of gays and how they lead their lives.

In China, as in many parts of Asia, marriage represents not only a way to continue the family line but also to find a partner who'll take care of men and their aging parents. When Wei told his mother he was gay, she asked, "Who will look after you, wash your clothes or cook for you?"

Because many Asians live with their parents until they get married, it's often harder for them to lead openly gay lives.

"Maybe you can come out in your workplace, but not at home, so you get married," says Zhang Beichuan, a professor at Qingdao University and an expert on homosexuality.

China's one-child policy also puts pressure on gays and lesbians to have kids, because their families "really care that they produce a child," says Sun Zhongxin, who pioneered a 2005 course about homosexuality at Fudan University in Shanghai.

The prevalence of double lives — by one measure, as many as 90% of Chinese gays marry the opposite sex, compared with a fraction of that in Western nations — has prevented true acceptance of homosexuality, some experts say.

Gay men might be more open about their sexuality, says Mr. Gay Hong Kong, Rick Twombley, if they felt protected against discrimination.

"It's the most important thing, in mainland China and in Hong Kong" that gay men need, Twombley, 33, said during a party where he unveiled his elaborate one-shoulder, gold-and-red costume for the Worldwide Mr. Gay pageant to dozens of clapping supporters.

Although Hong Kong law protects gays and lesbians from government discrimination, they have little recourse if a private employer fires them.

Fighting the propaganda machine

In China, the Ministry of Health is open about gay issues but the propaganda and security departments are a different matter, Zhang says. Discrimination affects perhaps 100 million gays and their immediate families, Zhang estimates.

"In legal and human rights circles, no one is paying attention to this area," says Zhang, who doubts there will be rapid progress on anti-discrimination legislation.

"China faces a bottleneck as government policies and legislation have not kept up" with social developments, he says. "Other disadvantaged groups like ethnic minorities, the disabled, and women and children, all have protective legal measures, but there is no clear assistance for gays."

As legislation remains years away, Wei and fellow activists instead work toward more public discussion and greater tolerance in the national media.

In December, Wei despaired when a newscaster at CCTV, the national broadcaster, spoke of "homosexual sufferers" in a piece introducing a gay bar that opened with government backing.

"If we can't change attitudes at the top, it's very hard to change them at the grass roots," Wei says.

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.